You Found Me

The dinner was a hazy memory, riddled with a lot of nodding and mumbled ‘Yeah, right’s as I pushed my food around on my plate. No matter what I tried to do, I could still feel Jared staring at me, mocking me with his eyes.

I knew he would show up, just to piss me off, to get under my skin. My palms sweated like crazy under the table, and I tried to focus on breathing deeply, not on him.

“Are you okay?” Ariana mumbled into my ear as the waiters came by to clear out the plates.

I swallowed and nodded.

She pulled her head back and glared. “Leigh, tell me what’s wrong right now. Don’t lie to me.”

Blushing, I leaned over and whispered in her ear, “I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to ruin your big day, but Jared and I broke up, and he came anyway, and I’m just really flustered over it all.”

She stared at me in realization. “Oh my God. So when he called to see if he could get an extra invitation for his cousin…”

“That’s his new girlfriend,” I mumbled, coughing into my hand to try to hide the fact that I was having a panic attack on the inside.

Ariana looked up and snickered. “Oh, please. You’re clearly too good for him. That girl has a gigantic beak-nose, her hair is stringy, and it looks like she’s a mouth-breather.”

It was in that moment that I realized I shouldn’t have kept the truth from Ariana. She wasn’t disappointed in me that I couldn’t keep Jared around. It didn’t matter how much she liked Jared before; when times were important, she always took my side.

I burst out laughing. “God, Ariana, you’re perfect.”

She shrugged. “Want me to throw them out?”

I debated that for a moment before shaking my head. “Nah. I don’t want him to know that he got under my skin.”

“That’s my mature little sister,” Ariana approved with a smile before turning back to Mike, who had tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention.

I took another sip of the flask of champagne, which I didn’t like very much. My experience with alcohol was pretty limited, and I was pretty sure that starting with champagne wasn’t the best idea.

“Hey,” I heard a male voice greet me.

Even though I realized that the guy’s voice was unfamiliar, I still felt slightly panicked, like it was Jared walking over to make my life miserable.

But when I turned to face him, it was a tall, curly-haired kid, probably around my age. His green eyes sparkled with mischief. “Hi,” I responded, hoping that he didn’t notice that my eyes were scanning over him time and time again.

From the look on his face when he sat down on the table next to me, I figured he did. “You could always pull over a seat,” I suggested to him.

“Nah. The table’s fine.”

“But I eat here.”

“So you can eat where my bum was. It’s fine.” I didn’t notice until that statement that he had a very defined English accent. Ugh. Just what he needed. Something to make him more attractive. “You’re Ariana’s sister, right?” he asked me.

Ariana glanced over at the sound of her name, her eyes flicking from the kid to me and back again, a smirk pulling up one side of her mouth. And maybe I was just being paranoid, but I was almost positive that when she started whispering to Mike, she was talking about me.

“Yeah,” I answered after what I hoped wasn’t too long of a pause. “How do you know Mike?”

“I’m his cousin’s best friend,” he answered. “One of them, anyway. I’m Harry.”

He extended his hand politely. I took it out of mannerly habit. “Leigh,” I replied simply.

“It’s hard not to know who you are, since you’re the maid of honor.”

“Right,” I chuckled softly. “So how are you here? It’s kind of a small wedding, and I figure that ‘best friends of cousins’ wouldn’t be high up on the ‘Must Invite’ list.”

Harry grinned at me, showing off a dimple in his cheek. “I’m Niall’s date.”

“Ohhhh,” I trailed off knowingly, feeling my cheeks flush a little bit. “Got you.”

“No, not literally,” Harry rushed. “I’m not gay. I didn’t, like, come with Niall.”

I raised a confused eyebrow at him, so he sighed and mumbled, “It’s complicated.”

“Sounds it,” I snickered.

He shook his head. “I just really like weddings, so I had him check the box for a date. And I made him take me. But he’s not really looking to entertain me much.”

He turned around to look across the room, and I saw a dark-haired guy, a huge smile on his face, talking with one of my cousins. From the blushes on both of their faces, I guessed that he was flirting with her.

“Ah, I see what you mean.”

Just then, Ariana and Mike got up to go across the room to cut the cake. “I’ve never met Mike before,” Harry voiced in a somewhat distant tone, probably because he was watching the two of them closely, “but I really like him with your sister. I think they’re a good-looking couple.”

“I agree with you,” I nodded. “Ariana’s never been as happy as she is when she’s with Mike. I’m really glad they’re married now.”

After the cake was cut, and the two of them fed each other (though, in a very Ariana-like fashion, she shoved her piece of cake into Mike’s mouth, making it go all over his face), everyone else got slices.

“Harry, right?” Ariana asked when she came back, a slight flush across her cheeks.

“Yeah,” Harry answered, turning to face her a little better.

“Why don’t you go back to your seat? Cake’s getting served.” At first, I thought she was just trying to keep order to her wedding, but from the look she gave me, I knew she just wanted to gossip about Harry.

“Uh, I’d love to,” Harry responded even slower than his normally slow speech, “but someone took my seat. Niall’s chatting up the bird over there.”

Ariana followed Harry’s gaze and smirked. “Oh, alright. Looking to get laid, is he?”

“What?” Mike questioned, perking his head up. “Who’s laid?”

“Niall,” Ariana told him with a grin.

“Mmm, ‘bout time,” Mike mumbled to himself. “Kid’s been innocent too long.”

Harry smiled at me widely, looking as if Mike’s statement had been humorous. I gave him a questioning look, but he just shook his head and mouthed, “Later.”

We got served cake last, since Ariana was the type to make sure that everyone had their food before herself so she could see they were enjoying it.

As Ariana chatted with Mike and Jeff, Harry and I ate our food silently. I hoped to God that I didn’t get any cake on my dress, since I had to hold it on my lap. There wasn’t enough room on the table for both Harry’s butt and the cake.

“This is awesome,” Harry mumbled. “What is this?”

“Dark red velvet,” I replied. “With whipped cream frosting.”

“Mmm, I knew the frosting,” he responded with a full mouth. For some reason, the fact that he wasn’t putting forth any effort to make me like him, like using proper manners, just made him more attractive to me. “I used to work in a bakery. But I don’t think we ever sold dark red velvet.”

“Welcome to the real world,” I grinned, taking another bite of my cake.